Johnny 100 Pesos (1993)

 “It will do you good to spend some time in prison.”

Johnny 100 Pesos is a very dark, strange Chilean crime film. When I say the film is ‘strange’ I should add that there are moments of humor juxtaposed with moments of dark reality. And I’m not that sure we’re really meant to laugh at some of the funny moments at all. Perhaps they are just placed within the film to accentuate the horror that awaits some of these characters.

The film is set in Chile. The days of the military junta are over, but life is still tough for a great many Chileans. When the film begins, a 17-year-old student named Johnny (Armando Araiza), dressed in his school uniform, sits on the bus. He’s obviously nervous, and events indicate he’s an inept criminal. He enters a high-rise building and goes into an apartment that’s converted into a tiny video rental shop. There are just a few choices here, and the walls are covered with posters of various recognizable films–including Last Tango in Paris. But Johnny isn’t there to rent a videotape. He’s there, along with accomplices, to rob the shop which is a front for a money laundering business. The crime goes wrong, and the crooks and their hostages find themselves in a siege situation with Chilean police.

What ensues is a comedy/tragedy of errors. Holed up in the video shop, the criminals along with their various hostages are trapped. As the hapless thieves try to negotiate their way out, we get flashes of life in Chile. Blood-sucking paparazzi mercilessly hound Johnny’s mother for a hint of where he went ‘wrong’ in childhood, and government officials juggle the potentially disastrous situation with concerns that it won’t look ‘good’ for them if hostages are killed. Meanwhile post-Pinochet government officials who are ‘sensitive’ to public opinion and public pressure must deal with others whose belief systems are locked in the ‘good old’ days–the hanging judge, a dinosaur from the Pinochet era, who couldn’t care less what happens to the hostages.

While the thieves are hardened criminals, Johnny is not. He’s never been to jail, and he has no idea of what awaits him. Some of the most powerful scenes in the film occur when the other gang members fill Johnny in with the details of what to expect in prison. One of the hostages is a beautiful ex-prostitute who’s married to the owner of the shop. She relates to Johnny and the poverty that drives him to crime. This is a very dark crime film, and although I expected it to be fairly mediocre, I enjoyed it far more than I expected. In Spanish with subtitles, Johnny 100 Pesos is directed by Gustavo Graef-Marino.

Machuca (2004)

 “Right wing beware, here comes the Rabble.”

The Chilean film Machuca is set in 1973 shortly before the coup that removed Salvador Allende from power and ushered in Pinochet’s dictatorship. The story of the turmoil of these times is told through the eyes of a young boy, Gonzalo Infante (Matias Quer) who comes from a privileged home and attends the private English school, St Patrick’s School for Boys. When the film begins, the Catholic priest in charge of the school, Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) brings in a large number of children from the local shanty town and tries to integrate them into St Patrick’s. This action reflects the larger social changes afoot in Chile over the past few years–Allende nationalized several industries, intended to expand land redistribution, and create jobs for poor Chileans. Father McEnroe’s decision to integrate the poor boys into an educational system intended to remove the children of wealthy Chileans from the masses, isn’t popular, but it is a sign of the times. Not only are the parents of the boys who pay admission to the elite school outraged, but the poverty and lack of education of the new boys makes them targets for bullying.

Gonzalo, who’s already the recipient of a certain amount of bullying, is placed in an interesting position. He could easily align with members of his own class and ridicule the new students, but circumstances lead him to befriend one of the poor boys, Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna). It’s not a particularly easy friendship, and it’s fraught with many awkward moments. At one point, Gonzalo visits the dilapidated hut that serves as Machuca’s home, and the realities of his friend’s poverty are almost overwhelming.

To Gonzalo, his life, his home, and his material possessions seem quite ordinary–especially when compared to the luxury of a home owned by his mother’s influential lover Roberto Ochagavia (Federico Luppi). There are scenes in which Gonzalo marvels at the luxury of Ochagavia’s home, and parallel scenes in which Machuca marvels at Gonzalo’s life. The boys’ tentative friendship is set against the backdrop of these volatile times, and civil unrest brings food shortages, queues for meager supplies, and demonstrations. The boys participate in the selling of flags for both left and right wing demonstrations, and these experiences provide some ugly scenes of human behaviour while underscoring class and ethnic divisions. As the civil unrest reels out of control, the boys bond in adversity. Gonzalo swears eternal friendship–an oath that is ultimately challenged by class differences. Machuca is an excellent, powerful yet subtle film that deals with its subject matter without sentimentality. Directed by Andres Wood. In Spanish with subtitles.